Peach Cobbler Murder (6 page)

Remove the foil cover from the peaches and drop on spoonfuls of the topping. Because the topping is thick, you’ll have to do this in little dibs and dabs scraped from the spoon with another spoon, a rubber spatula, or with your freshly washed finger. Dab on the topping until the whole pan is polka-dotted. (Don’t worry if some spots aren’t covered very well — the batter will spread out and fill in as it bake and result in a crunchy crust.)

Bake at 350 degrees F., uncovered, for an additional 50 minutes.

Minnesota Peach Cobbler can be eaten hot, warm, room temperature, or chilled. It can be served by itself in a bowl, or topped with cream or ice cream.

Valentine’s Day dawned bright and clear, and Hannah was up with the first pale rays of winter sun that crested the snowbanks. She made short work of feeding Moishe, chug-a-lugging a mug of strong coffee, and showering before she was fully awake. She pulled on jeans, donned a vivid red sweater in honor of the holiday, and grinned at her reflection in the mirror. Her curly red hair was sticking out like Little Orphan Annie’s, but there was no need to pull it back to accommodate a health department mandated hair net today. The Cookie Jar was closed.

The Cookie Jar customarily did a booming business on Valentine’s Day, selling heart-shaped cookies with red and white icing, pink frosted cupcakes with hearts drawn on the top in red, Cherry Pies with crusts cut out in heart designs on the top, Strawberry Flips, the cookie that Hannah had invented for last year’s holiday, and Cherry Bombs, maraschino cherries baked in cookie dough and dipped in powdered sugar. This year Hannah and Lisa had sold their treats early and while their profits hadn’t come close to that of past years, several dozen of the their regular customers had come back. Hannah wasn’t sure if this was due to her mother’s efforts, or if the locals simply wanted to come in the day before Valentine’s Day to see how Lisa, the imminent bride, was doing. It didn’t matter why they’d come in, just that they had. The Cookie Jar had almost broken even for the first time since the Magnolia Blossom Bakery had opened, and that was a step in the right direction.

Today was Lisa’s wedding and there was no way Hannah was going to let her work on this most important of days. That was why she’d put a notice in the Lake Eden Journal to tell everyone that they’d be closed. Lisa deserved to sleep in, relax all morning, and think of nothing but the happiness that awaited her.

“I know,” Hannah said to the orange and white tomcat that sat on her bed. “I never wear this unless I’m staying home, but we’re closed today.”

“Owwww,” Moishe howled, staring at her for a moment and then turning his back. Since Hannah wasn’t sure whether that was a comment about the way her sweater clashed with her hair, or a reminder that his food bowl was empty, she didn’t reply.

Fifteen minutes later, with Moishe breakfasted for the second time and Hannah the first, the industrious part-owner of The Cookie Jar got ready to leave. While it was true they were closed, Hannah still had baking to do for Lisa’s wedding and their industrial ovens would hold a lot more than the small oven she had at the condo. The wedding cakes were ready. She’d done that last night, preparing a bride’s cake and a groom’s cake. They weren’t fancy and they hadn’t required any baking at all, but she was almost positive that Herb and Lisa would love them.

The project had taken a little research. Doing her best to be surreptitious, Hannah had asked about Lisa’s favorite cake as a child. The answer had surprised her, as had the answer Marge Beeseman, Herb’s mother, had given. Both Lisa and Herb had liked what was known in Lake Eden as “Cream Stacks,” one of the easiest cakes to make since there wasn’t a bit of baking involved.

Cream Stacks were cookies stacked up like little skyscrapers with pudding between the layers. They were refrigerated overnight so that the cookies could soften and the pudding could set, and then they were frosted with whipped cream. Lisa had preferred graham crackers held together with chocolate pudding mortar, while Herb had favored chocolate wafers cemented with vanilla pudding. Once Hannah had learned all that, she’d started to ponder the question of how to make Cream Stacks festive enough for a wedding cake.

Hannah was nothing if not resourceful and she’d experimented for several days with the ingredients. It was like playing with building blocks and she’d enjoyed herself almost as much as she had as a child. But even though she’d come up with some interesting shapes, including a tower that was worthy of Rapunzel, the Cream Stacks still weren’t special enough to serve at the wedding reception.

The solution to her problem had come several night ago. She’d been watching a cable cooking show with Moishe, and the featured dessert had been en English trifle. As Hannah watched the too-slim-to-have-tasted-any-of-her-own-cooking pastry chef dish out the trifle, the lightbulb went on over her head. There was no reason in the world why she couldn’t make Lisa and Herb’s cream Cakes in trifle bowls, unmold them, and frost the resulting layered domes with whipped cream.

The official wedding cake, the one that would appear in the photographs, was being created by Sue Ganske, Lisa’s cousin twice removed. Since everyone on Lisa’s mother’s side was Norwegian, it would be a towering twenty-layer Kransekake, the traditional wedding cake of Norway. As Sue had warned, when she phone The Cookie Jar with her offer to bake the wedding cake, “You’d better plan on having another cake to serve. Kransekake is a sculpture dessert like the French Croquembouche. It’s so beautiful, nobody wants to eat it.”

Hannah could understand that. She’d seen Croquembouche, the French dessert made with miniature cream puffs coated with caramel syrup and arranged in a pyramid. Usually displayed on a fancy serving plate, it was drizzled with more caramel syrup spun out into golden threads and then dusted with powdered sugar. The elaborate dessert had been displayed at a formal catered dinner Hannah had attended while she was in college. It had looked scrumptious, but none of the guests had tasted it. The Croquembouche had made it through the entire party intact, since no one had wanted to be the first to break off a piece.

That college party had taught Hannah an important lesson, and it was the reason the meringues on her pies weren’t absolutely symmetrical, and her cookies were usually slightly irregular. When a dessert crossed the line from pretty to a flawless masterpiece, people were afraid to touch it. Hannah had no doubt that the same Croquembouche was still making the rounds of the formal college parties, and if anyone ever worked up the nerve to take a taste of the petrified pastry, they’d need extensive dental work.

“I’ll be back by three at the latest,” Hannah announced to the cat whose head was buried up to his ears in his food bowl. “I have to get dressed for the wedding. You won’t mind eating dinner that early, will you?”

Moishe’s head snapped up and he stared at her with an expression Hannah interpreted to mean, Are you kidding? I’ll eat any time you feed me. And speaking of food, why don’t you fill up this bowl before you leave?

“Okay, okay.” Hannah unlocked the broom closet door and filled his bowl with kitty crunchies. Then she tossed him a salmon-flavored treat shaped like a fish, relocked the door, and shrugged into the long green parka coat Andrea and her mother had given her for Christmas. Once that was zipped up, Hannah clamped a matching knit cap on her head, pulled it down to cover her ears, retrieved her car keys from the saddlebag purse she then slung over her shoulder, and pulled on her fur-lined gloves. Although this whole process had taken less than three minutes, she was already overheated inside the quilted parka, and it was a relief to step out the door and into the sub-zero freezer that Minnesota proved for its residents free of charge during the winter.

• • • The first thing Hannah did when she got out of her car in the parking lot at The Cookie Jar was to unwind the extension cord that was wrapped around her front bumper. One end of the cord was attached to the head-bolt heater that was installed under the hood of her cookie truck. She plugged the other end into the strip of outlets on the outside of her building and mentally congratulated herself for remembering. She’d caught the tail end of the weather on KCOW radio during her trip to town. The current temperature was minus eighteen degrees and the predicted high for the day wasn’t expected to reach the zero mark.
      

It took Hannah several tries to get her key in the lock, but she didn’t take off her gloves. Her palms were sweating a bit inside the fur lining and she knew how painful it could be to grasp the metal knob with a moist hand. The moisture would freeze almost instantly upon coming into contact with the cold metal. Then, when Hannah removed her hand to step inside, the top layer of skin on her palm would stay on the outside of the doorknob.

Once inside, Hannah headed straight for the kitchen coffeepot. She’d invested in one with a timer when they’d gone on sale right after Christmas and it had been money well spent. Hot coffee awaited her and it was just what she needed after her long, cold commute.

Hannah was about to take her first sip of coffee when the phone rang. Should she answer it? It couldn’t be a business call. Everyone in town knew they were closed for Lisa’s wedding day. It had to be someone she knew. And that meant she practically had to answer. Hannah took a quick sip that burned her lip and reached for the phone on the wall. “Hello?”

“You didn’t say, Hello, Mother.”

Hannah was silent for a moment. Perhaps they had a bad connection, or maybe she was still half asleep. But to her ears, Delores had sounded almost disappointed. “Every time I do that, you tell me that I shouldn’t answer the phone that way.”

“That’s true. You shouldn’t. But you’ve done it so often I’ve come to expect it. I called to ask you an important question, dear. How’s business?”

“There isn’t any. We’re closed today.”

“I know that. When I said business, I meant business in general. I need to know if all the public relations work I’ve been doing at my clubs is working.”

“I think it is,” Hannah answered reluctantly. She really hated to discuss her business with Delores now that she was an adult living on her own. But her mother was concerned and Hannah knew she had her best interest at heart. “It’s a whole lot better than it was, Mother.”

“But it’s still not good enough.”

“You’re right,” Hannah admitted. It seemed that the unexplainable mother-daughter radar was working again, and Delores had caught the worry behind her daughter’s words. “A couple of dozen of our regulars are back, and that’s good. And quite a few of the ladies from your groups came in.”

“So every day a few more of your former customers come back?”

“That’s right. Yesterday was a pretty good day. Everybody that came in wanted to wish Lisa well before the wedding.”

“So you showed a profit?”

Hannah opened her mouth to answer in the affirmative, but she’d never been able to lie to her mother. “Not exactly.”

“Did you at least break even?”

“Not quite.”

There was a long silence on her mother’s part and then Delores spoke again. “Maybe it’s a passing fad. I just read a report that said most bakeries are suffering because everyone’s counting carbs. People just aren’t eating as much bread or as many sweets right now.”

“I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it, Mother. customers are still streaming in across the street at the Magnolia Blossom and they’re not featuring low-carb desserts.”

Delores was silent again and when she spoke she fairly hissed the words. “Those two lightskirts!”

“Mother!” Hannah was shocked. She knew precisely what the phrase meant in the Regency romance novels that her mother liked to read.

“I’m sorry, dear. But Shawna Lee’s been trouble ever since she set foot in Lake Eden and her sister’s no better. If I don’t miss my guess, all this has to do with Mike.”

“Mike!”

“Yes. Shawna Lee wants him and you’re in the way. She opened her bakery to discredit you and drive you out of business.”

Hannah considered that for a moment. Could her mother possibly be right? Jealousy was a powerful motive. “Maybe I should march right over there and tell her that is she wants him, she can have him.”

“Oh, don’t do that, dear,” Delores said quickly. “She’d just deny it.”

“Then what do you think I should do?”

“Just announce your engagement to Norman, and that’ll leave the field clear for her with Mike. I bet that within two weeks she decides the bakery is too much work for her and she closes it.”

Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it. Accepting her mother’s advice was a bit like accepting Moishe’s offer to baby-sit for a lizard. It was bound to end up in disaster. “Forget it, Mother. For one thing, Norman hasn’t asked me to marry him. And for another thing, I’m not sure I’d accept it if he did. The best thing for me to do is hang on and hope for the best.”

“I suppose you’re right” — Delores gave a little laugh — “but it was worth a try. I’d love to see you married to Norman. Mike’s all wrong for you. But I do wish there was something I could do to help you stay in business. Can you think of anything?”

“Nothing that’s not illegal.” Hannah gave a short laugh. “Don’t worry, Mother. Things’ll work out, one way or another.”

Once Delores had signed off, Hannah hung up and returned to her now-lukewarm coffee. The situation at The Cookie Jar was dire, but she didn’t want her mother to know precisely how dire.

In desperation last night, Hannah had placed a call to a lender she’d seen advertised on television. OneDay Lenders promised cash within twenty-four hours if you had equity in a house or a condo, and all Hannah had to do was call back after nine o’clock this morning and OneDay’s automated system would tell her whether it was a go, or a no. If it was a go, they could hang on for a while longer. If it was a no, Hannah had enough savings to keep them afloat for another two weeks and then they’d have to close shop.

Hannah sipped her coffee and watched the clock. Eight fifty-six. Four minutes to go. She turned to survey the row of empty glass cookie jars on the counter, wishing they were full of freshly baked cookies and there were customers to eat them. Then she glanced back at the clock again. It was still eight fifty-six. Her Grandma Ingrid had been fond of saying that a watched pot never boiled. Was it also true that a watched clock never ticked? And if time flew when you were having fun, did it stall out when you were miserable?